By EFE
Nov 18, 2024, 3:46 PM EST
The heads of State and Government participating in the G20 summit, in Rio de Janeiro, paused this Monday in the agenda for the official photo of the Alliance against Hunger and Poverty, in which Joe Biden, Giorgia Meloni and Justin Trudeau did not appear.
The leaders of the United States, Italy and Canada arrived late to the registration meeting, which included the other leaders of the forum countries and the organizations that adhered to Brazil’s initiative to end these scourges.
With the iconic Pão de Açúcar hill in the background, The leaders were placed around the president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silvawho in the front row had at his side the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, the past host of the event, and the President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, who will take the baton of the forum from December 1.
Xi Jinping (China) also appears in the front rowKeir Starmer (United Kingdom), Luis Arce (Bolivia), Gustavo Petro (Colombia) and Santiago Peña (Paraguay).
In the back row were Javier Milei (Argentina) and Emmanuel Macron (France), almost behind Lula’s back, and behind them the president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaumand the head of the Government of Spain, Pedro Sánchez.
They were left out
The photo appointment took place after lunch and while the rest of the G20 members managed to pose for the record, Biden, Meloni and Trudeau arrived late.
The cameras, which filmed the leaders’ arrival at the site chosen for the photo, outside the Museum of Modern Art in Rio, Biden was captured arriving in the company of Trudeau just after the photo was taken and when the other leaders were beginning to return to the premises.
At that time, Meloni approached Biden and Trudeau and, although at first there was doubt as to whether she had managed to get on stage, minutes later it was confirmed that the Italian prime minister was also left out of the photo, as official Brazilian sources confirmed to EFE.
Although it is not the official photo of the event, the image was seen as a sign that the internal climate of the forum is less tense, which is seen as a good omen for a possible consensual final declaration.
The G20 is made up of Germany, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, South Korea, the United States, France, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Russia, South Africa and Turkey, as well as the European Union and the African Union.
It is not the first time that a president misses the photo of a summit in Rio de Janeiro.
In 1999, when the first summit of the European Union-Latin America and the Caribbean was held, It was the then Cuban president Fidel Castro who arrived late for the family photo and did not appear.
The Cuban leader himself justified his absence with a more than curious excuse: “Friend, I just went to the bathroom to urinate,” he declared to journalists in the same halls of the Museum of Modern Art where the G20 meeting is held.
With information from EFE.
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